ABOUT | Little Austria

About Us

PROUD LOUDOUN COUNTY BAKERY START-UP

Little Austria was started by two young Austrians on a mission to find a authentic apple strudel in the United States. Determined in their pursuit, they decided to take things into their own hands.

Equipped with a rolling pin and a lot of enthusiasm, they started baking. The word had got out, and they soon needed to buy a whole bakerys’ worth of equipment to keep rolling out the dough for their hungry customers.

Today, Little Austria is proud to offer its customers an authentically delicious strudel experience, one made through hard work, by staying true to the traditional technique of hand-stretching the dough, and by always using highest quality ingredients.

Little Austria is woman owned and located in Loudoun County.

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Media & Press

Read what the media, local & abroad, have to say about Little Austria by linking to the articles below.

Kara Elder

Washington Post

Apple Strudel: A favorite thing, for centuries...

SEPTEMBER 7, 2017

Apple strudel has a way of evoking nostalgia.For Helene Gallent, owner of Little Austria, a small Leesburg, Va., company specializing in Austrian sweets, apple strudel is the taste of childhood...

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Jeff Clabaugh

Washington's Top News

Farmers market favorite Little Austria..

DECEMBER 3, 2018

For over a year, Austrian-born Helene Gallent has been selling freshly baked strudels at local farmers markets, working out of shared commercial kitchen ChefScape in Ashburn, Virginia.

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Katishi Maake

Washington Business Journal

Austrian strudel maker to open first brick-and-mortar..

November 30, 2018

With the assistance of state funding, a startup Austrian bakery will open its first standalone space in Sterling. Little Austria LLC will create five new jobs and invest more than $371,000 to build its new commercial bakery. The...

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Times-Mirror Staff

Loudoun Times-Mirror

Little Austria Bakery to expand in Sterling...

NOVEMBER 30, 2018

Little Austria bakery will invest more than $370,000 to build a new commercial bakery in Sterling, officials announced Friday. The company is expected to receive more than $27,000

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Joseph Dill

The Loudoun Tribune

Announcement Set Nov. 28 About Investment...

November 28, 2018

Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Consumer Services Bettina Ring will be on hand Nov. 28 for an announcement of plans by Little Austria, LLC to make a business investment in Sterling.

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Claudia Felsberger

Kleine Zietung

Die Amerikaner lieben diesen Kärntner...

SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

Helene Gallent aus Kärnten hat in den USA die Firma „Little Austria“ gegründet und verkauft österreichische Desserts. Sogar die Washington Post schwört auf ihren Apfelstrudel.

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What is Strudel?

LAYERED AUSTRIAN FRUIT / CHEESE PASTRY

A flaky, layered, lightly sweet pastry of fruit or cheese popular in Austria. The word "strudel" comes from the German word "whirlpool" due to it's swirled, layered appearance. Strudel-baking is truly an art that lies in finding the perfect balance between its paper-thin hand-stretched dough and its delicate filling. The dough's ingredients are quite basic (flour, water, oil, vinegar, salt) but, the tricky part is stretching the dough so thin that you can read a newspaper through it.

The most common filling is based on apples. But fillings can pretty much be made with a sheer endless variety of ingredients, such as topfen (sweet, soft quark cheese) cherries, pears, berries, plums, even spinach and more.

Our strudel recipe is also not secret. We would encourage you to try it out! You need some guidance?

VIEW RECIPE & VIDEO